Comment on Anon catches a glimpse of his own mortality
Knightfox@lemmy.world 6 days agoThe Poles have quietly been building one of the largest militaries on earth.
Look, I’m all for a prepared Europe, but this quote is a joke at best.
Poland has 300k troops (all numbers are active and reserve combined), Germany has 862k, France has 300,000k, Ukraine has ~2.2 million, China has 2.53 million, Russia has 3.57 million, the US has 2.8 million.
Poland might be building one of the largest European militaries, but they’re still 10x smaller than the belligerent players.
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
In what world does Germany have 900k soldiers? Google says 180k active duty, you only get to 900k if you count someone who did mandatory service back when he was 18, which was like 30 years ago, and hasn’t touched a gun since. If you define military as “people who train regularly and would be ready on a short notice”, we have nowhere near as many (since mandatory service was effectively stopped 10+ years ago)
Point is, those numbers mix active and various qualities of “reserve” personnel
Knightfox@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I literally said that
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Sorry, i should have been more precise myself and should have read your answer more clearly.
My point is, those numbers are a bad indicator for military strength.
Someone having gone through a few months of training decades ago doesn’t make them a soldier who is ready to fight on a short notice.
Likewise, a country at war with less personnel but a huge stockpile of resources and working structures will likely conscript a lot of citizens anyway.
Poland doesn’t have conscription at the moment (they stopped at a similar point in time as Germany), and their number seems to count only “proper” reservists. Germany counts everyone who at some point was part of the military as (legally) reservist, regardless of their current state, fitness, or motivation.
Knightfox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No worries, I thought you might have confused the statement as only applying to the first group. I see what you mean about how you count reservists and think it’s a totally valid point.